The Age of Conan has been rather rough on Funcom, whose fourth quarter financials reveal an operating loss of $23.3 million, possibly prompting the departure of chief financial officer Olav Sandnes.

Funcom's latest massively multiplayer online game Age of Conan is to blame for the company's huge deficit, with $22.8 million depreciating in the face of the game's poor performance. The bad financial news was compounded by the announcement of CFO Olav Sandnes's departure.

"Funcom is a company with a substantial potential based on a unique combination of skill sets in a fast growing global market. I wish Trond Aas and the rest of the organization all the best in realizing the full potential of the company," commented Sandnes.

Despite the operating loss, revenues were up for the fourth quarter, with subscription fees from Age of Conan raising them to $8.7 million over last year's $1.2 million.

In layman's terms, Funcom gained money from subscription fees, but lost money actually operating the game. This is reflected in the closure of over half of the game's servers last year. The company basically spent too much to make that $8.7 million.

Still Age of Conan soldiers on, despite estimates the the subscriber levels for the game are below the 100,000 mark. There's still hope, as Funcom has recently announced launch plans for the game in Poland and Russia, two countries where Conan remains immensely popular. We'll be keeping our fingers crossed.